Randy L. Rasmussen/The Oregonian/2009Gov. Ted KulongoskiOregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, in the final year of his term, has one more big thing he'd like the Oregon Legislature to do next month: ask the voters to divert some of the "kicker" tax rebate checks they occasionally get into a rainy-day fund.

Kulongoski's proposal has support across much of the political spectrum. Chuck Sheketoff, who runs the liberal Oregon Center for Public Policy and was a chief backer of the successful tax measures, has a piece in The Oregonian Friday urging lawmakers to take the kicker on.

On the other side, many of the business leaders active in the opposition campaign frequently talked up kicker reform as something they supported.

Well, don't expect kicker reform to come out of the February session. The political hurdles are big and it isn't getting a lot of enthusiasm from legislative leaders. As House Speaker Dave Hunt, D-Gladstone, put it diplomatically: "It's certainly not on the list of definitive things we plan to accomplish in February."

Here are several reasons why I suspect a kicker bill won't pass in February:

Who would run a campaign for it? You don't just throw this onto the November ballot (voters would get an automatic say because it is a constitutional change) and expect it to pass. And it's questionable whether you would get unions or business groups to pony up a lot of money after they spent so much on the Measure 66 and 67 fight.

Many Democratic lawmakers are leery of being seen as piling on the taxes. They had a tough enough time on the last tax vote, and they are understandably cautious about so quickly testing the will of their constituents once again.

Democratic leaders don't want to hand Republicans a campaign issue. You can argue that diverting some of the kicker into a rainy day fund is a smart way to smooth out the state's boom-and-bust budgeting. But there are plenty of critics who will see it as just another tax increase. Sen. Bruce Starr, R-Hillsboro, who is in a tough reelection race against Democratic Rep. Chuck Riley, put out a press release Thursday saying the state should instead set aside 3 percent of the state's revenue into a rainy-day fund while preserving the kicker. “The kicker is an asset to Oregon families and the economy,” said
Starr. “It is also a way to stem the tide of government spending."

Sending voters a kicker reform measure would give the Tea Party folks - including such groups as FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity - a great organizing tool in 2010.

Perhaps most importantly, several Democrats I've talked to note this isn't their only window of opportunity to deal with the kicker. The earliest that a kicker check could be coming to voters is in the late fall of 2011. So this means lawmakers could get past the election year, act quickly in the 2011 session and put something on the ballot in May of 2011.